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Shovel Knight is Burying Sales Expectations

Yacht Club Games' critically acclaimed love letter to the 8-bit era, Shovel Knight, is exceeding sales expectations across all platforms, an impressive feat considering the game was released for 3DS, Wii U, and PC a little over a month ago.

In an interview with Game Informer, Yacht Club Games' captain Sean Velasco and art-type guy Nick Wozniak gave a few hints as to Shovel Knight's post-Kickstarter success thus far:

Sean Velasco: I'd say it's doing very well. We are very pleased with where it's at, even this early in the sales time.

Nick Wozniak: Across all platforms it's exceeding expectations.

Elsewhere in the interview Velasco and Wozniak discuss such topics as working within the limitations of an 8-bit look- and sound-alike game, what it's like to (successfully, we might add) run a Kickstarter campaign, and the potential for a Shovel Knight 2.

Have you been enjoying taking a spade to the heads of your enemies or has this indie darling gotten by you so far? Let us know in the comments!

if the game is making money then why would have to go to kickstarter again? just seems greedy to me if people helped him with money to make this game then he gets rich and wants other people's money once again?

The problem with funding further projects AFTER kickstarter is that even when they sell well a large part of your audience is going to get the game for free. They've already used up a lot of revenue from sales and if the next project needs large overheads...2 or 3 projects down the line perhaps but the number of these studios that will break free from crowdfunding entirely 2-3 years down the line will be interesting

I bought this game along with Earthbound a few weeks ago. I spent most of the time playing Earthbound and did not play much of Shovel Knight. I even put Mario Kart 8 on hold along with a game on 360 that I was playing. Now that I beat Earthbound, I think I'll get into Shovel Knight.

Guys, I love Shovel Knight too, and there is another similar game coming out tomorrow. The name is Jet Gunner, and it is Contra with more platforming elements. It has received lots of hype among Indie gamers. Its graphic is definitely NES style, and it is probably less difficult than Contra because it has a health bar system. The fun about this game is its simple gameplay and its challenging bosses just in the original contra game. In addition, it has a variety of guns you can choose, and different guns may change the playing mechanic differently. If you like 2D contra you should definitely check it out. There is a demo that you can download from Steam, and it costs only $3.99 for the full version.

Although it is a PC rather than a Wii U game, its graphic is faithfully to the old NES game with much improved control. It was so good that I have played the demo (first stage of the game) over 20 times, and I am thinking that the old NES game audience may like it also! Below is the trailer:

I bought this game about a week ago and I am really enjoying it. Maybe I forgot how to play 8 bit games? But man….Shovel Knight is hard!!! I die all the time haha. I'll never be rich because of how much I die. I play about 1-2 levels a night.

I think the price is a bit high at $15 but I would still recommend it to anyone.

I am so ready to play this game! I couldn't resist watching some of the Gamegrumps play through and its fraggin amazing. hands down a masterpiece. (as far as I've seen of course)Its music....graphics...gameplay...humor...They really made something special. The soundtrack is dirt-cheap (even free if you dont have any money) and totally worth it and If you can, pay a few bucks/euros to support.

@Captain-Falcon It depends - They are only 5 people. If they get say 5,000,000$ I cannot see why they should need to. (Fez sold 1,000,000 copies - I dunno how well it is doing but I suspect it will end up being one of the more successful ones).

Well, no surprise there. It is a fantastic game, and I haven't seen a bad review of it, yet.

I am a little amused by the thought that the handful of people commenting here with their desire to see it on the Vita is actually all the people in the world who care enough about the Vita to see it on there.